7. Something To Do With All the High Profile Celebrities?
One theory, courtesy of Time magazine, is that perhaps we are just taking notice of all of the celebrities who passed away this year because so many of them were prolific. Because of this, we tend to remember them more, making it seem as though so many celebrities passed away. Indeed, you will probably recognize every single one of the following celebrities; beginning in January 2016, David Bowie passed away, which was then followed by Alan Rickman, Harper Lee, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Christina Grimmie, Gene Wilder, Leonard Cohen, Fidel Castro and Carrie Fisher, to name but a few. Carrie Fisher’s mother, Debbie Reynolds, who starred in 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain, passed away the very next day in high unusual circumstances. According to her son, Carrie’s death was too much for her and her final words were about how she wanted to be about with her daughter. Do you think the high-profile nature of many of these celebrities had anything to do with all of the celebrity passings this year?
6. Statistically Speaking, Yes, There Were More Celebrity Deaths In 2016
Some of the theories above simply speculated that factors like social media or being mega-famous made it appear as though there were more celebrity deaths in 2016 than there actually were. If we take a look at the actual data though, there were more recorded celebrity deaths in 2016. According to the BBC, for example, there was a sharp rise in the number of celebrity deaths in the early part of the year in particular (while the second of the half was relatively normal). When they looked at the entire year, the BBC had 30 percent more obituaries in 2016 compared to last year. In short, yes, there actually were more celebrity deaths this year, at least according to the BBC, although the consensus is that the number was not abnormal. This would make the above social media theory a little less credible given that all of the celebrity deaths weren’t simply an illusion – there actually more deaths this year.
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